New Chapter: You discuss many issues....just wanted to say a few things. I believe in a caring God, and His son, Jesus. Not in imperfect men, that the Bible candidly described.
Idle question about Abraham and Human Sacrifice
by corpusdei 63 Replies latest watchtower bible
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tec
I'm going to do this point by point, and so I hope that is okay with you NewChapter, and I apologize because I think that's going to make it kinda long. I would also like to say that I am not saying the account with Abraham did not happen as written. I am musing that there are parts of it that are not understood by us, and I don't think that is too far-fetched. My bottom line is always Christ. Always.
Then how do you decide which parts are true?
I compare everything to what Christ taught, did... and also love, compassion and mercy. I'm not picking and choosing what I personally want to hear. There is no reason that I would be right in what I want to hear. I see through Christ.
The bible says All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, and for SETTING THINGS STRAIGHT. Forgive me, I can only quote from NWT, but I'm sure others read similarily.
They do all say that... but which parts are scripture? Did Paul think his own letters were scripture? Considering that he once differentiated between something that was from God and not him, and something that was from him and not God, I don't think that can be the case. He certainly didn't have the bible that we have now, to make that statement about.
Certainly, under the warning not to change a word, god could prevent his word from becoming adulterated.
Why make the warning if it couldn't happen? Why speak about the lying pen of the scribes if there was no lying pen of the scribes?
Surely if he were loving and his son WAS the word, he would not leave us to guess. He would not allow a mere mortal to remove or change important information.
Perhaps He meant for us to hear about His Son from witnesses and disciples, and to begin our seeking of Christ from their accounts (as I consider the written gospels to be witness accounts) - but to know His Son, and to learn from the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth who guides us into all truth - as even the bible says.
If we get to read the bible and decide on our own what is true and useful, even though doing goes contrary to scripture and therefore the Word, then a person could decide that this god was out for blood and his son was good with that. And his Hebrew followers were good with that. And I am not good with that.
Perhaps. But as I said, I don't decide on my own what is true and useful. I measure everything against Christ, and love.
God doesn't change, he is the same god that called for the wholesale slaughter of men, women, children, babies and just because he sent a friendlier face, Jesus, that does not erase his history, which is his present, because again, he does not change and he is never wrong.
God doesn't change. That is true. But our perceptions of Him can certainly change, and they can certainly be wrong. Christ came to show us the truth, that was often quite different from what had been written or believed upon. That means that the people before understood wrong... not that God changed. God was always as Christ showed Him to be.
I think the reason I run into conflict with how I see the bible, Christ and God is this:
I look at Christ to help me define all else written or said about His Father, including the OT.
Others look at the OT to help them define Christ.
But if Christ came to show us the Truth, then why would we try to fit him into the perceptions that people had before Him, of God? We should be looking at everything through Christ.
It is okay to pick the parts of the bible that fit how you see Jesus, but that just leaves me to question, doesn't that invalidate the authority of the bible?
I don't pick parts of the bible to fit how I see Jesus... HE is how I see the rest of the bible (as I said above). But as to the question, I suppose that depends on how you define 'authority of the bible'.
What if everything written about Jesus was false or tampered with, and everything written about the Hebrew god was dead on? If you are willing to accept that the nice sounding stuff is true but not the rest, then perhaps you are willing to say it could be the opposite. That the horrors and nightmares recorded are the real truth and the good stuff is wishful thinking.
If I viewed things that way, then I guess I couldn't say that I follow Christ. And we would all be in big trouble! But even in the OT, you will read passages that show God as Christ showed Him. Those stand out to me, because I am looking through Christ.
I'm glad you see the bible as you do---it makes me like you as a person. Yet that probably means you are a caring person, with or without the bible, and you are doing everything in your power to make the bible a loving book. I am not able to dismiss the rest of it though. Jesus represented the god of the OT and he quoted from the OT. He didn't even have the NT to quote from.
I hope I showed enough of my view in the above. I think I would be repeating myself to say that Christ DOES represent God... more than the OT. The OT does not represent Christ - though it does point toward Him. That the Messiah would be the One to teach us Truth. So when He comes to teach us truth, His word should take precedence.
I only see the bible as I do because I can't see any other way to claim that I follow Christ, and to believe that Christ is the Truth and shows us His Father... but then dismiss something Christ taught or did in favor of something else. That just doesn't make any sense to me at all.
See God through Christ, NewChapter... and you just might see Him through entirely new eyes, and clearer ones at that.
Peace to you,
Tammy
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NewChapter
Okay Tec, I see you are sincere and loving, and I respect that. Since Jesus used the OT and was in complete agreement with it, I can't reconcile things as you do. Jesus never mentioned that the OT was inaccurate or harsh--he revised a few things which is expected because he introduced a new covenant. That covenant was not intended to discredit the OT, but was a further working of those writings. I think if the ancient Hebrews had it wrong, then the god of the bible and the word would have been interested in righting it. It's like saying that for 4000 years, the Hebrew god was content to allow his people to walk in darkness---which is problematic since he was supposedly still speaking through his prophets and could have corrected them at any time. We can read Revelation and be assured that the Hebrew god has not changed. That was a revelation that came from god, through Jesus to an angel to John. So Jesus' hand was in that also. Same god, same story, even with Jesus in the mix.
Thanks for the conversation though. As long as you're happy then you will have peace.
NC
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scooterspank
I just always thought it was cruel. I didn't have websites like this for support when I left. It was one of the things that I couldn't argue for. I just thought it was mean. Anyway. Thank goodness for those awful stories back in the day.
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corpusdei
Wow. I go off to cook dinner and watch True Blood and come back to several pages of really interesting debate. I wonder if it's too late to change my username to "Ogad Nattagin" which, in the language of my people, means "Dances on Hornets Nest".
Sulla>>
I would suggest that the thing to take away from the story is precisely that human sacrifice is not how YHWH expects things to work.
My difficulty with that is that it's takes a viewpoint that's very end-justifies-the-means (though to be fair, that viewpoint can be applied to the majority of the bible). Even though Jehovah may never have intended Abraham to kill Isaac, he still required the choice to be made. He made Abraham choose between love for his God and love for his family (a morally destitute choice that Jesus would echo his support of many years later). The ritual loses viability if Abraham knows it's a test, or that Isaac would be resurrected some time later (which removes any actual sense of sacrifice, and thus significance, from the act) which means that, as far as Abraham and especially Isaac were concerned, God has just ordered the ritual murder of a faithful follower by another faithful follower. Anyway I cut that, it points to nothing more to take away than the danger of faith at the cost of morality.
It's a shocking story, of course, but it is shocking to us mostly because we are so far removed from explicit human sacrifice.
I take issue with the fact that religion has hijacked morality as completely as it has. Not so very long after this event, Jehovah had his chosen people running around engaged in wholesale slaughters, killing men and murdering children (not virgin girls, though, they make good ... um.... slaves. Yea.) and one of the rationalizations was because they engaged in worship of other deities which involved filicide. Even barring that, the very significance of the sacrifice underscores the depth of the cut here - if the sacrifice of Isaac were not shocking and painful and hard, it's difficult to call it sacrifice.
Larsinger58>>
So what Abraham did to Isaac counterparts what Jehovah did to Jesus Christ at one point. If anything, it underscores the enormity of the price paid to save YOU/US.
I will vehemently disagree with you here. Abraham had no capability to resurrect Isaac. Jehovah's omnipotence and Jesus immortality detracts from, not advances, the significance of Christ's death. Christ dies and is restored to an immortal spiritual presence, as he was before he went slumming on Earth. All in all, what did he have to lose, really? (lightning bolt in 3 ... 2 .... 1 ....)
DOES THE CREATOR HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO LIMIT THE LIFESPAN OF HIS CREATURES?
Does the mother have the legal right to abort her fetus? The same logic applies, but there have been bombs in abortion clinics that would disagree.
tec>>
Perhaps it is as with Job, we only see part... not in full, and so do not understand.
Job. Wonderful account. Our loving heavenly Father stands to one side and allows Satan to rip away a faithful mans health and murder all his children in one fell swoop. When this man, who has been through more suffering and pain and agony than most of us can ever imagine, essentially asks why this happened, why this pain occurred to him, this God of Loving Kindness follows that by berating Job, browbeating him with the evidence of creation all the while dodging the question (read the account, God never answers to the issue of suffering). "Can you make the horse leap like a locust, can you hang the stars in the firmament?" He asks. The answer is not why pain exists, the answer is "Who are you to dare ask me that?". Not a divinity I care to bend my knee to.
*ahem* Sorry, tender subject.
NewChapter>>
I know I've posted this before, but it makes me laugh everytime.
May ... well, whoever ... bless Tim Minchen. My personal favorite is "Anger (Feet)"
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There are others that I'd like to comment on, but the time is late and my glass of five times distilled calm is nearly empty, so I'll regretfully have to pass. I will say, though, that this account more than any other convinces me that the only watertight theodicy is the duality of God, that He is perfect goodness and love and evil and malignance rolled into one. The Alpha and Omega in a whole new light, as it were. That God, as unsettling as a divine schizopherenic might be, is the only way that I can rationally balance the evidence of the Old Testament, the New, and the world we see around us.
Even that, though, pales in the single understanding that makes more sense than everything. God did not make man in His image, we made Him in ours. He is a crutch to shift our pain and responsibility onto to avoid carrying them ourselves, we can point and say "The Devil made me do it" and feel a razors edge better. Isaac laid on an alter, if he ever existed (because I take the writings of a bunch of nomadic tribesmen, written centuries before the invention of paper and a working sewage system, with a modest pinch of salt) and watched that knife because his father believed that he had to kill his son to appease his God, and he believed it as wholeheartedly as did the followers of Baal or Molech. Worshiping Baal or Molech didn't make a child any less a child, nor did it make the act of killing that child any easier or more difficult. God doesn't put the knife in our hands, but He does give us ample excuses to use it.
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NewChapter
AH! Corpus! I absolutely love Angry(feet). I got to see Minchin (FINALLY) last Saturday. He's been avoiding the US so I waited 3 years. His stuff is just layered with irony and meaning. He had some really funny new stuff that he's trying to keep off of youtube for a while.
NC
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tec
Thanks for the conversation though.
And you as well.
Might I just put a couple OT verses out there, and you can think of them what you will, or ignore them if you choose that as well?
Hosea 6:6 - For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. (Christ quoted this)
And:
Psalm 40:6 "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require."
And also all the corrections Christ made (that we have record of). If God is the same always, then could his desires and commands for us have changed? Or did we just not always understand his desires and commands? Keeping in mind this:
Jeremiah 8:8-10 'How can you say, "We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?... "From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit ."
Christ quoted from the OT, yes. But if the OT is contradicting itself in various parts, then which parts is He validating? The ones that corroborate what He showed to be truth, or the ones that contradict what He showed to be truth?
Peace to you and goodnight,
Tammy
(as for Revelations; if you think you have the proper understanding of all that symbolism, then you know more than I do, for certain... but I think it is very easy for us to misunderstand all that symbolism... we do have a good track record of misunderstanding and misapplying God's words, Christ's teachings, and the laws)
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NewChapter
But Tammy, that just intensifies the problem. Regarding this quote: when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?... by their own admission we can't trust the scribes. In that way, we can't trust any of it. All that was written about Jesus could be false just as easily as all that was written about the OT god may be false. And remember "just as in the time of Noah . . . " As I said, same god, same story. This reference proves that Christians believed that their god destroyed everyone but 8 in a great flood.
If I am reading a book on science, and some of it's own authors claim that some of the other authors wrote false things, in the same book--well then the entire book is suspect. I can't trust it. Now I know the bible wasn't written as the same book, but it was the same subject and it was all written by scribes. According to that scripture-some of those scribes wrote false things. I have nothing against Jesus, he taught valuable lessons--at least as presented by scribes that may have portrayed him falsely. If god is almighy and his word is so important that he refers to his son as the word, I do believe it would be in his interest to protect that word. It would be the loving thing to do anyway--so he either protected it or he didn't. If he didn't, and that seems to be what you are saying, then I can trust none of it---including the parts about Jesus.
NC
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still thinking
tec....most of the time I really like your reasoning...however, this one just reminded me of how I was thinking when I was studying with the witnesses.
I don't need to change anything about the bible, though. I just need to follow Christ. Guaranteed there are many things that you and I and others do not understand about OT accounts, and also NT ones. I think that's a given, considering the time span, the translations, the difference in cultures, etc. But when I, myself, do not understand something, then I simply look to Christ. I'm not saying, NO that never happened... I am just saying that there is something I do not understand, something that seems missing, and so I will look to the Truth (Christ), to carry me through these things that I don't understand.
There were many things I didn't get...but I used to pray for them to be made clear to me...the only place that got me, was nearly baptized........I am not saying that you are wrong...just that I am very confused at the moment and this type of reasoning hasn't helped me a lot in the past.
I suppose you are really saying just follow Christ without needing to understand the bible...but isn't this where christ is being taught? How else would we have heard about him?
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tec
NC,
I'm not sure what I can say. The verse is there, for anyone to see - one of the reasons I find this inerrancy of the bible to be a tradition of man, rather than being based on truth. I don't want to hurt anyone's faith, but at the same time, the faith of some people IS hurt by putting that faith in the wrong thing (anything other than Christ and God) - and then thinking Christ cannot truly be of love, mercy, and compassion... because some things in the OT dispute that.
The bible doesn't have to be inerrant or supernaturally protected, though, because it is the Spirit who teaches (to answer Still Thinking as well). If you want to know the truth about something, then go to Christ, Himself - ask for guidance, for answers, for faith to hear, and strength to follow.
The bible is a guide - and I think it is a good place to learn about Christ, as long as you don't get tripped up in the interpretations and traditions of men. It does contain scripture, as well as history, parables, morals, laws... and many witness accounts to Christ. The gospels that we have are but a few of those witnesses. Look for clarity and consistency between accounts - (love being in them all, as the most important law). If you were listening to a whole bunch of people telling you the same story, then most often, where those stories mesh would be closest to truth, right?
I can see few ulterior motives to teaching us to love one another as Christ loved us, and to love God. To show mercy, to turn the other cheek, etc. Some of these things must ring true for you when you read them... simply because there is no ambition behind them; they don't serve the self, they serve others, and God - who asks us through Christ TO serve and love one another.
Still Thinking,
There were many things I didn't get...but I used to pray for them to be made clear to me...the only place that got me, was nearly baptized.
Me also. I prayed that I could understand/accept that Jesus is Michael; then that I could understand that the trinity was absolutely false, or absolutely right, etc. In other words, I was praying for confirmation of things I wanted to hear, to join something I wanted to join. Not surprising I got no answers, at least not in the affirmative :)
One person I was not listening to though, was Christ. Or God, since He says to listen to Christ.
I suppose you are really saying just follow Christ
I am, yes.
without needing to understand the bible...but isn't this where christ is being taught? How else would we have heard about him?
It holds the written accounts of those who knew him, and of his teachings and actions, yes. But I didn't hear of him from the bible. I was told about him from my family (not much about him, mostly about God). So we would have heard about him by word of mouth, and probably without so many doctrines and rules because those are harder to enforce by word of mouth, I think.
But once we know about someone, then we should probably go to Him.
The Spirit also teaches. The men of faith from long ago... how did they know anything, or hear from God? From this account on Abraham, words didn't jump up out of a book and say 'Yo, Abe... don't kill that boy!" He heard , in spirit. Same with Moses, all the Prophets God sent throughout history... and of course, Christ.
Peace to you both,
Tammy